Smartphone
A smartphone, computer phone, or pocket computer is a mobile cell phone built on the computing platform and thus, has more abilites than a feature phone. Today's mobile phones are mostly smartphones and have the abilities to listen to music, take pictures, record videos, play video games, buy apps and games from their desired app store, make video calls, browse the web, etc. Current model smartphones also feature a high-resolution touch screen leaving with just simple buttons to perform simple tasks such as going back to the home menu, putting the phone on sleep mode, and waking the phone. About 55% of the world use smartphones while 50% of the world still use feature phones. The main smartphone platforms known are Apple's iOS, Blackberry's Blackberry OS, Google's Android, Microsoft's Windows Phone (formerly Windows Mobile, and Nokia's Symbian. The Android OS, Windows Phone, and Symbian OS are all open source meaning that they can be found on any cell phone even if it isn't made by Google, Nokia, or Microsoft while BlackBerry OS and iOS are closed source meaning that the cell phones that run on BlackBerry OS and iOS are only made by their manufacturers. History The first smartphone ever available was called the IBM Simon announced in 1992 and released on August 16, 1994. The phone was considered a brick phone which is a common term to describe a feature phone with a candybar design. The Simon featured a dock to charge the device. It was wireless and featured a touch screen display though most of it's features were still simplized. A year later the Apple Newton series was released which was a line of tablet form pocket computers with a resistive touchscreen much like the Simon. The device was released a year before the Simon in 1993. The Simon was discontinued in February 1995 due to it's expensive pricing and unsuccessful sales and the Newton was discontinued two years later in 1997 due to the same reasons as the Simon. Operating Systems Nokia Symbian In early 2000 the Erricson R380 touchscreen smartphone was released. It was the first device to run the Nokia Symbian OS. It featured a keypad much like a basic feature phone but could be flipped down to use the touchscreen. The latest firmware in the Symbian OS is called Nokia Belle OS and is considered a true successor to the Symbian line according to some people while some people say it is a redesign rather than a successor. Symbian OS was considered the number one smartphone platform until 2010 when it became the third smartphone platform behind Google's Android and Apple's iOS. The Nokia Symbian was still in front of BlackBerry OS, however and still is. BlackBerry OS The first BlackBerry was originally released in 1999 as a texting and email phone until 2002 when BlackBerry released their first official mobile phone. BlackBerry then became a very popular operating system just behind Nokia Symbian OS until 2010 when both Nokia Symbian and BlackBerry were taken over by iOS and Android leaving BlackBerry the number fourth mobile OS behind Symbian. Windows Mobile Windows Mobile was a former mobile smartphone operating system. The first operating system in the Windows Mobile line was PocketPC 2000. It was released on April 19, 2000. Windows Mobile is now discontinued in replacement for Windows Phone 7 released in 2010. The latest version of Windows Mobile is Windows Phone 6.5.1 and is still available on some devices. iOS I n January 2007, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone. It was the first phone to feature a multi-touch screen excluding the IBM Simon, the Apple Newton series, and the Ericsson R380. Back at the time Apple said the iPhone simply runs "OS X". In September 2007 the iPod Touch was released and ran the same "OS X" operating system as the iPhone. It also had a similar manner to the iPhone except for no phoning capabilities. On March 6, 2008, Apple announced that the name for the iPhone and iPod Touch operating system would be could iPhone OS. On September 7, 2009, Apple changed the name from iPhone OS to iOS with a license from Cisco IOS. In 2010 the iPad was released and runs on iOS. A stripped version of iOS runs on Apple's Apple TV. iOS is the #2 mobile operating system right behind Android. Android Android is an open source mobile operating system created by Google and supported by many different major mobile phone companies such as Samsung, Motorola, HTC, Sony (formerly Sony Ericsson), etc. The first phone to run the Android operating system was the HTC Dream released on September 20, 2008. On January 6, 2010, Google and HTC released the Nexus One. The device ran on Android 2.0 Eclair and was a huge success until May 2011 when Samsung released the Samsung Galaxy S II the successor to the popular Samsung Galaxy S released in May 2010. The Samsung Galaxy S II ran Android 2.3 Gingerbread, one of the bestselling Android firmware updates released. In September 2011 after being shipped to North America the Samsung Galaxy S II was awarded the #1 phone in 2011. On May 3, 2012, Samsung announced the Samsung Galaxy S III. The Samsung Galaxy S III was launched in June 2012. So far it is a huge success to the Android Market. The device started off with Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich. It is expected to be upgraded to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean in the near future. Windows Phone Windows Phone is the most recent mobile operating system released on October 27, 2010. The bestselling line of Windows Phone smartphones is the Nokia Lumia series. The latest stable released of Windows Phone is called Windows Phone 7.5 Mango. On June 27, 2012, on the same day Android announced the Google Nexus 7 Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the release of Windows Phone 8. It is unknown when Windows Phone 8 will be released but it is known that Windows Phone 8 can share media with Windows 8. Category:Mobile phones